Christmas Memories
by RoboTitaness
Summary: Three families Harry knew and one he didn't. Part 18 of 25 Days of Christmas.


**Title:** Christmas Memories  
 **Author:** Fr0st6yte (RoboTitaness)  
 **Fandom:** Harry Potter  
 **Characters:** Harry Potter  
 **Genre:** Family, Friendship  
 **Summary:** Three families Harry knew and one he didn't.

* * *

His first family was the original one. It was a typical one as well. A mother. A father. Three uncles. One on his father's side - his godfather. One on his mother's - also practically a godfather, but couldn't legally be. And one that really was on no one's, though they didn't know that at the time. Two aunts on his mother's side, but none on his father's.

He had others - family friends not close enough to be considered uncles or aunts, but people who doted on him nonetheless. He was one of the two sweethearts of his parents' workplace - the Order. Everyone bent left and right to spoil him.

His first family was also the one to be cruelly ripped away, betrayed by one of its own. He would never remember this family. Really, most of the people in the Christmas picture - a beautiful sight, with five adults crowding around a child in a warm cottage - were strangers to Harry.

* * *

His second family was the only one he knew of for ten years. It was not too strange - an aunt and uncle and cousin. And if they didn't care for him? He didn't know any better. This was typical of a family, for all he knew.

This time it was only the group of three that Harry knew. No family friends. No uncles to indulge him. No aunts to adore him. No friends to cherish his existence. He was left with people who were irritated with his presence. Who wished he didn't live with them.

What he didn't know was that there were dozens of people, those previous family friends, who didn't want to see him at Privet Drive either. They wanted him to be with people who cared for him. There was an uncle, his mother's brother, alone in his small cottage in the woods, wishing that he could have the child he loved back. There was his godfather, his father's brother, wasting away in a cell, where only thoughts of the boy kept the man alive.

Instead, Harry was left with feeling invisible with his second family, one that didn't love or care for him. This Christmas picture - two adults clutching a small, pudgy child to their chests lovingly while a skinny boy sat on the ground away from them - was depressing image to a young man, sixteen years later, when he found himself and his parents running away due to the threat to his cousin's life.

* * *

Harry's third family was the one he found himself knowing most. It was a family that started when he was eleven, and stayed with him through all the ups and downs of his life, through every danger that presented itself to destroy his life.

At first, it was just Ron and Hermione. Then came Ginny and the other Weasley brothers, along with Mrs. and Mr. Weasley. Neville and Luna. Remus and Sirius then (re)entered his life, but they both disappeared just as quickly, along with Tonks and Fred. But he gained Andy and Teddy and Fleur. And soon enough, he had James Sirius and Albus Severus and Lily Luna. His beautiful children.

His family was not conventional - it was truck loads of Weasley kids and Potter kids and the Lupin. It was aunts and uncles and cousins and in-laws and nieces and nephews. It was a bigger family than Lily Potter could have ever imagined her baby having.

This was the family that Harry had grown to love. It was one that he would give his life for, one that would sacrifice themselves for him too. They all cared for each other and messed with each other and were there for each other. There wasn't a single Christmas picture to showcase their love - there were many, sequential ones, that showed their family growing bigger and bigger. The members, however, only grew closer and closer.

* * *

And the one he never had? The one he never had was the life he would have had if Peter hadn't betrayed them. If Sirius had become secret-keeper. If they had trusted Remus.

It was one where James and Sirius played pranks with the Weasley twins. Where Lily pulled out box after box of baby pictures of Harry to show Ginny and their kids. Where Tonks and Teddy changed their appearances as Remus and Hermione discussed a new book. Where a loyal Peter and Arthur messed with a new Muggle object. Where Molly got to mother everyone.

It was a full family, even bigger than Harry's third one. Where his children met their grandparents. Where George wasn't twinless, Teddy not parentless.

There were no Christmas pictures for this family. This family was only one that Harry sometimes imagined there could have been, on his worse days. Perhaps, he would think, when it was all over, decades in the future, they would all be together again.

* * *

 **Cross posted on AO3 (Fr0st6yte)**

 **Find me on Tumblr: fr0st6yte**


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